


scenes from retirement

by DracoMaleficium, mitzvahmelting



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Existentialism, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares, Old Married Couple, Romance, Some Plot, Some Sex, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:40:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoMaleficium/pseuds/DracoMaleficium, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitzvahmelting/pseuds/mitzvahmelting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It starts with Batman and Joker at 58 and 54 respectively.  They collapse together on the roof of Wayne Tower, with bones that crack and joints that ache, breathing hard and glancing out at the sunset over the bay, and finally, finally, the clown remarks to his partner and rival, “… maybe we should stop, now.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	scenes from retirement

**Author's Note:**

> This was a headcanon brainstorming session over Skype with DracoMaleficium that I converted to prose. I hope y'all enjoy it!

It starts with Batman and Joker at 58 and 54 respectively.  They collapse together on the roof of Wayne Tower, with bones that crack and joints that ache, breathing hard and glancing out at the sunset over the bay, and finally, _finally,_ the clown remarks to his partner and rival, “… maybe we should stop, now.”

All of Joker’s paperwork is transferred from Arkham Asylum to the improved state-wide mental health facility, and, with the change of venue, all of Joker’s violent behaviors suddenly cease. No more fellow patients turn up with ghastly wounds from plastic sporks with the middle two prongs bent down, no more security officers are discovered dead in the morning wearing stale, rigid smiles.  It isn’t completely out of nowhere – Joker had been slowing down for some time now, his psychoses mellowing with age, his violent urges softening around the edges. But it is still a big statement when he makes it through a whole month at the new facility with a squeaky-clean reputation.

The nurses at the facility actually kind of love Joker, because he’s turned into an old dear who always has a treat for when kiddies visit, and he sings a lot of showtunes, and the pranks he plays are usually harmless and get the other residents to laugh.  On the other hand, woe befall those who neglect to visit his friends in the facility – he still has ways to mess with people he doesn’t like.

Word reaches him that Batman is coming to visit, and Joker is terribly excited. “Oh dear,” he announces to the nurses, “I had better clean up around here! Dust the floor, realign the pictures on the walls…”  He inspires his fellow patients into a janitorial fervor, demanding the whole facility be in perfect condition for his Romeo’s arrival.

Gradually, what starts as a series of check-up/interrogation visits turns to Bruce just coming for a chat every now and again.  Then, at Joker’s polite request, Bruce starts bringing flowers to brighten the living spaces of the facility, and then flowers just for Joker, and they go for walks, sit on a bench in the garden together and talk about lilacs and forget-me-nots. They also speak of the good old days, and the not-so-good old days.

Batman (or, more often, Bruce) is the only one that Joker ever gets toothy with, mumbling a violent threat as they watch the sprinklers start up in the garden, or hinting at hidden caches of weapons around the city. A majority of what Joker says to rattle Bruce is lies, but he fabricates them because he knows Bruce can handle it (and perhaps craves it).   The truth is, it works. Bruce is glad to see the spark is still there; he isn’t sure he could handle a completely docile Joker. Somehow, in one of those queer existential ways, it would be the end of his world.

So Bruce continues to visit, and the nurses giggle when he comes into the facility with a flirtatious smile and a cheerful greeting.  “That Joker is an old fox,” they laugh. “Look how handsome his special man is!”

One time, one of them takes Bruce aside to tell him, “I’m so glad you’re coming to see him, Mr. Wayne.  It’s really made a huge difference. I haven’t seen him this genuinely lively in a long time.”

Two years pass like this, and with Joker’s stellar behavior (and the calm, eager happiness that has settled comfortably behind his trademark smiles), Bruce Wayne is able to use his influence to get Joker put on probation.

They live together in a little rustic old cabin away from the city.  Joker makes fun of the birds and watches reality television in the den.  Bruce gets antsy and has to go back to Gotham every once in a while, but they make it work.

Life at the cabin is actually quite lovely. It’s a large house with warm furnishings, backing up to a big lake.  The property also includes a few acres of forest on either side.

In the first few months, the two of them get into gardening.  They fight over which flowers to plant (Joker would be perfectly content with an exclusively purple palette but Bruce insists that the soil doesn’t favor the lavender bushes and won’t Joker please just _listen,_ put that spade down!)

It doesn’t matter in the end, because autumn rolls in quickly, and winter soon after. The morning of November 25th, Joker announces with unbridled glee that it is time to take a picture for their holiday card.

Bruce scoffs. “We are _not_ sending a Christmas card.”

“But you _promised!”_ Joker whines.

“When did I do that?”

“Back in June, you said – and I quote –” Joker smirks and lowers his voice an octave to mimic Bruce’s tone, “’Gosh darn it, Joker, fine. We can send a Christmas card as long as you don’t mention it again until an appropriate time.’  And when I asked what an appropriate time would be, you said ‘I don’t know, the month leading up to Christmas! Not in the middle of June, and _definitely_ not when I’m trying to put out a forest fire!’”

Bruce opens his mouth and then shuts it again. Damn, he thinks, that conversation sounds familiar, although he remembers far more cursing and shouting.  “To be honest,” he says, “at the time, I didn’t think our new living arrangement would last this long.”

Joker pouts. “Pessimist.”

Still, Bruce doesn’t think a holiday card is a good idea. For one thing, Joker would want to send it to the rogues, and that would pose a big security risk, especially because Bruce _definitely_ isn’t putting on the cowl for a Christmas card, and Bruce Wayne probably has no reason to be appearing in a Christmas card with the Joker.  Then there’s also the fact that Joker will want to send the rest of the cards to Bruce’s family, and Bruce… still isn’t quite ready to explain to the kids that he’s honeymooning with his archenemy.

Naturally, Bruce reneging on his word upsets Joker, who resolves to slip Bruce a whole lot of Benadryl in his orange juice to knock him out.

It seems to work; Bruce crashes out on the couch a half hour later, claiming he’s an old man and he’s allowed to take a mid-morning nap.  When he’s sure Bruce is asleep, Joker tip-toes over to the couch with a festive stocking cap and sharpie.  He pulls the Santa hat carefully over Bruce’s ears and gently draws a smile on Bruce’s lips with the marker, and he lifts his phone and leans down to take a selfie with the unconscious man…

…when suddenly Bruce’s arms latch around Joker’s middle and he begins relentlessly tickling the clown.  “You think you can knock me out with _Benadryl?”_ Bruce scoffs playfully, looking rather silly with Sharpie all over his face.  Joker is laughing so hard and so breathlessly he might fracture a rib – Bruce’s fingers won’t let up, targeting Joker’s extra-ticklish sides. The camera phone clatters to the floor, forgotten. “Moron!” Bruce shouts, “I’m the goddamn _Batman._ I drink Benadryl for _breakfast.”_

“Yes I – hah! – I know you drink Benadryl for breakfast; I’m the one who poured it for you!”

Bruce hooks his fingers under the backs of Joker’s knees and Joker squeals. “Don’t be a smartass.”

When they settle down and Joker falls back with a wide grin against Bruce’s chest, the clown whispers between echoes of giggles, “I knew you were awake the whole time.”

“You did _not_.”

“Did too!” Joker claims, “I’m your mortal enemy, darling, I think I know that trying to put you to sleep is harder than putting down a horse.”

And then their conversation, as it is wont to, leads them into bad habits.  In this bubble world of the cabin, where nothing really matters except each other, they have a tendency to really get a kick out of gaslighting each other into lunacy.

“But Brucie,” Joker suggests, “what if you’re actually asleep right now, and you’re just dreaming that you outsmarted me?”

“J,” Bruce replies, “which is more likely: you successfully drugging me, or me outsmarting you?”

Joker winces. “Errr… both!”

“Actually, J, in all likelihood you’re hallucinating this whole cabin.  Isn’t that just like you?” Bruce smirks, “Couldn’t _stand_ the thought of living without me so you dreamt this whole place up, isn’t that right?”

“Nuh uh, Brucie. Why would I hallucinate this? _You’re_ the one with all the repressed fantasies about me that would creep out of your subconscious and manifest in dreams.  I’m, however, perfectly content with even the _littlest_ bit of attention from you, so if you surpass all my expectations by showering me with kisses like this – oh, that tickles! – it _must_ be real.”

Then, as they can’t convince each other of any lies about the present, they begin to try to twist _past_ confrontations to see what they can convince the other to believe.

“No, J, I did not confess my undying love to you. We fought. You prattled. The helicopter was on fire and I kicked you into the river.”

“’Prattle?!’ I didn’t ‘prattle!’  I recited love poems I spent _months_ working on with Eddie!  And you teared up, I saw you getting emotional!”

“Okay, first of all, I did _not_ tear up.  Second of all, I know you’re lying, because Eddie would rather jump into a tank alone with Killer Croc than help you work on love poems. Try again.”

“Actually, as a matter of fact, Eddie was _eager_ to critique my writing back in Arkham. Especially during the 30 th recitation. Oh boy, did he have a lot to say.”

“…okay. That I can imagine.”

The two of them never intended to end up as the sort of old men constantly lapsing into anecdotes about their youth mixed with good-natured married bickering, but they can’t seem to break the habit, and it carries them through the holiday. Joker managed to send the Christmas cards after all, via email, thanks to some sneaky candid shots of Bruce mixed with Joker’s delightfully juvenile Microsoft Paint skills covering up any latent nudity with Christmas ornaments and reindeer doodles. When the Bat-children come by on Christmas with their respective significant others and little Bat-grandchildren toddling behind, they end up watching with horrified fascination as the two men in garish Christmas sweaters trade barbs back and forth like a game of Ping Pong.

“Whoa,” whispers Tim to Dick, when Joker jumps on top of the arm chair and points down at Bruce as if the added altitude lends credence to whatever point he’s trying to make, “it’s like performance art.”

The youngest kiddies tend to love weird Grandpa J, not least because he’s the one who slips them candy when their parents say no.  But at family gatherings like this when everyone is sitting in the den together after supper, it becomes abundantly clear that the kiddies think Grandpa Bruce’s knees are more comfy to sit on. This makes Joker quite indignant. (Nevermind that he’s quite partial to Bruce’s lap himself.)

“Gather round, kiddies!” Joker announces, patting his knees to maybe coerce the little ones to pick his lap instead – he doesn’t _bite._   “Grandpa J is gonna tell you a story about the first time I met your dear old pap Brucie here!”

But the little ones beam at him, attentive and yet oblivious from their comfortable perch in Bruce’s lap.

Annoyed, Joker launches into his story anyhow, careful to embellish as much as possible. Bruce is rolling his eyes so much they’re probably going to get stuck that way, and he’s trying to keep up with Joker’s rambling, fact-checking the story as they go.

For the adult Bat-children, watching Bruce and Joker interact is the most compelling Christmas entertainment ever.

The kiddies are most fascinated by the parts of the story that unsettle their parents. “Is it true you killed a bunch of people?” one asks with saucer-wide eyes.

Joker replies, “Yup!”

“Woah…” “Cool!”

And then, because of course it would come up at the absolute worst time, one of the kiddies asks, “Did you really kill Uncle Jason?”

“Sure did!” Joker grins.

Bruce goes very still. Dick and Jason shoot each other a look, a sort of commiserating ‘Our lives are so weird.’

Sometimes, Joker deliberately prods the Bat, just to see what’ll happen next.  Bruce shouldn’t have allowed himself to hope that Christmas would be an exception.  No, Joker is toying with him, from across the room, giving gory details of that night of the Batman’s utter failure, knowing that it agitates Bruce, knowing that Bruce can’t do anything about it as long as his body is host to three squirming toddlers who trust their Grandpa to be calm and warm and never angry.

But then night falls, and all the kiddies, big and small, are put to bed, and there’s nothing to protect Joker from Bruce’s wrath (which happens to take the form of the unbelievably fit 60-year-old plowing Joker into the mattress like a man half his age.  Oh yes – they might be old, but they can still get it.)

Since the cabin is host to the extended family, the pair of them need to be quiet, no matter how brutal their late-night rendezvous becomes.  A gag is involved, and you’d think it would be on the loud-mouthed, giddy Joker who has to endure Bruce’s intense fucking skills, but Joker has _practice_ being quiet and hiding from prying ears (and police bugs). Bruce, however, has no such practice. One need not be quiet having sex in an enormous, empty manor, nor on the rooftops of a busy city.  And he’s so used to allowing himself to make noise while exerting himself during hand-to-hand combat because he needs to keep his core loose, so he just doesn’t _think_ about it anymore, and he won’t just kick the habit when he’s already in retirement.

Most nights, Bruce’s grunting can be heard across the goddamn lake.  What can he say? He’s an enthusiastic lover. And Joker _loves_ that about him, because he can hear Bruce losing his cool as they get closer to release, and if Joker does something special in bed he can always hear the reaction loud and clear.  (“Special” in bed with these two means anything from normal reach-arounds and teasing to less-normal randomly kneeing Bruce in the gut for old time’s sake. Yes, Joker _also_ has some habits that are hard to kick.)

Anyhow, gagging a stud like Bruce is a real power trip for Joker.  He likes to run a finger gently down the seam where Bruce’s lip meets the plastic, gather the drool there and then suck his finger into his own mouth like the taste is a perfect delicacy. He watches as Bruce’s eyes squint, and he wonders what the former vigilante must be thinking right now.  Is Bruce being honest with himself? It’s always hard to tell.  But Joker’s mind goes blank when Bruce snaps his hips forward viciously.

They have the cabin to themselves again later that week. On New Year’s, after midnight and the subsequent sex, Bruce’s post-coital thoughts meander, and he remarks to Joker, “I’ve just realized: all of my scars are over five years old, now.”  He’s almost proud of it; it reminds him of how far they’ve come.  Joker reaches out for his reading glasses from the bedside table, but he can’t reach and Bruce smiles fondly, handing over the glasses.  “What do you need those for?” Bruce asks.

Joker takes the aluminum frame of his glasses and promptly stabs them into Bruce’s thigh without any restraint.  And, for a moment, it doesn’t even click in Bruce’s head that Joker has done this. Bruce just stares down at his leg, where the piece of aluminum is at least an inch deep, the wound beginning to bleed over his thigh.

And then the pain hits, and Bruce processes his shock, and he shouts, “What the _hell?!”_

Joker grins innocently. “What, didn’t you want a new one?”

“I was just making an _observation,_ I never said-”

“Well _excuse me_ for wanting to cheer you up!”

“J, we just had sex, I didn’t need cheering up, I just – oh _fuck!_ ”

Joker slides a hand up Bruce’s shoulder as if to offer comfort, “I thought you missed the good old days.”

“Jesus. Nevermind.”

Bruce is surprised by how much pain he’s in.  Through the process of removing the foreign object, putting pressure on the wound, cleaning it, closing it up with stitches, bandaging, and even the sharp ache of it afterwards… the pain is continuous and jarring and it lasts multiple days.  He whines about it to Joker. He can’t stop thinking about it. “It hurts,” he moans the following morning after changing the bandage, “Goddamn it, I can’t believe you stabbed me.  You’re the fucking worst, oh my God.”

Joker snorts and hands Bruce his coffee, saying, “I thought your pain tolerance was way higher than this, Batsy.”

Bruce groans, “J, I spent 30 years in a haze of daily painkillers, okay, I couldn’t feel _anything._ ”

“Oh, you just need drugs?” Joker laughs, “Darling, sweetheart… we can get you drugs.  Don’t you worry.”

That afternoon, Joker disappears with the motorcycle, and thanks to the pain Bruce doesn’t have the presence of mind to remind him that he doesn’t have a driver’s license; it’s too late, and Joker is already gone.  He doesn’t bring a phone, either, and Bruce should be worried, but the truth is that Joker probably slipped him something in his coffee, and he’s just… tired.  He didn’t sleep any the night before, with the pain. He deserves to sleep now, even if it’s under suspicious circumstances…

Bruce wakes up to Joker’s fingers gripping his jaw and shoving pills in his mouth. Bruce sputters for a moment, but then there’s a glass of water held to his lips and he drinks without further complaint, swallowing whatever it was.  He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know. He is just relieved that Joker is back, and safe.  When did that happen? Bruce wouldn’t make much of a Batman anymore.

Hours later, Joker is laughing hysterically, and Bruce doesn’t remember what he said that was so funny, but Joker announces giddily, “Brucie, you are _fun_ when you’re high.”

“Your fault,” Bruce mumbles, and pushes his nose into Joker’s hair to hide the color rising in his cheeks.

“And I don’t regret it for a second,” says Joker. “By the way, darling, you owe me some new reading glasses.”

When spring rolls around, they discover one major drawback to living out in the woods, in the form of little pink marks that keep showing up on Joker’s skin, and then turn into _big_ marks the more he itches them.  “Uh… Brucie?”

“Yeah?”

“I know this whole having-dinner-on-the-patio thing was my idea, but…” Joker scoots his chair out from under the table and picks up his plate of pasta and haddock. “…those citronella candles are doing jack shit. I’m getting eaten alive out here!”

Bruce swirls his wine and raises an eyebrow at Joker. “I don’t know how you manage to get bitten up so much; it’s only May.”  But, after a reproachful look from Joker, he gives in and stands up, clearing the table and extinguishing the candles.

When he enters the kitchen he finds Joker with his arms crossed and his shoulders up high. “I really wanted that to work out,” he says, dejectedly, “because, you know, it’s _so_ nice out, and wouldn’t you like to be the sort of people who have nice candlelit dinners on the patio at their lakehouse?”

Bruce frowns. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“Of course you don’t,” Joker says, “you _are_ that sort of people.”

“We can try again tomorrow. It’s going to be cooler out, so maybe it’ll be less buggy.”  But Joker doesn’t seem at all soothed by Bruce’s encouragement.  He leans against the kitchen island and scratches at his forearm with an air of self-pity and disappointment.  Bruce sighs, “Oh, come on, J.  Don’t be like this. You know – you know why they bite you so much?”

Joker watches through his lashes as Bruce sets the plates down on the counter and then steps closer.  Playing along innocently, Joker suggests in a small voice, “Because I taste so sweet?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Bruce hums, smiling.  He leans closer, gently pressing against Joker, trapping him against the counter in the circle of Bruce’s arms.  “But they should save some of your blood for the rest of us to savor.”

Joker gasps, delightedly. “You dirty _bastard,_ you know what it does to me when you talk dirty.”

But Bruce can’t respond, because he’s already got his mouth where Joker’s neck meets his shoulder.  After all, Bruce knows, saliva helps with the itching.

 

Bruce really enjoys the “dirty bastard” line.  It’s way up there with the times Joker calls him a “pervert” or a “dirty old man.”  He’d never admit it, and he doesn’t understand it, but there’s something about the flash in Joker’s eyes when he says stuff like that, and the way he knows just what to say to get under Bruce’s skin…

Joker’s prattling on from their Gotham days always was intended to _shame_ Bruce… and considering Bruce ended up sort of married to Joker, it’s no surprise he tends to get _off_ from a little shame.  Joker figures that out pretty quickly and uses it against him in bed almost constantly, whispering absolutely filthy things under his breath as they fuck, just quiet enough that Bruce has to really pay attention to hear it, and when he realizes what Joker is saying it makes the fire in him rage.

On the other hand, what Joker really likes is admiring Bruce’s body, still a paragon of masculinity even in his later years, an Adonis to be touched and watched and drooled over.  Joker likes Bruce’s chest in particular, especially his thick, salt and pepper chest hair.  Joker likes to ride him, and cum all over his abdomen, make a mess of Bruce and watch his eyelids flutter like he just can’t cope with how intense the pleasure is. Joker calls Bruce “teddy bear” after sex, twirls his chest hair around a finger, strokes it lovingly when they’re in post-coital snuggles.

And then, there’s watching Bruce work out.  He doesn’t exercise as intensely as he did as Batman, but enough to keep himself fit.  He gives Joker piggy back rides through the woods, which is certainly fun, feels like old times.  And he takes Joker out on the lake on the metal rowboat.  Bruce does all the rowing, and Joker can just kick back with his hands behind his head, squint through his sunglasses and insult Bruce’s technique.  That – that’s fun for both of them, no matter how much Bruce denies it.

One time, Joker capsizes the boat. It takes a lot of effort, actually, because Joker is only so heavy, and the rowboat is quite large, but he gets enough momentum rocking the thing side to side that eventually it all tips over. Bruce just watches while it happens, because he’s almost certain that Joker won’t manage to do it, that Bruce is heavy enough to offset the rocking. Of course, he shouldn’t have underestimated the Joker’s ambition.

So the boat capsizes, oars and all. When he comes up for air, Bruce says something along the lines of “Oh, you’ve done it now!” and the two men end up wrestling in the middle of the lake, gasping and kicking and splashing.

And then at one point, Bruce finally dunks Joker’s head under the water, and he holds him there.

One second, two seconds, three seconds. Joker stops struggling and seems to flash a grin at Bruce through the glassy, green water.  Bruce keeps him under. Twenty seconds. Thirty seconds.  Joker’s body language is telegraphing to Bruce, to Batman: _If you want to drown me, you can drown me. I’m okay with that, darling._

Eighty seconds. Ninety seconds.

“Shit,” says Bruce, and he realizes what he’s doing, hands trembling, “Shit, shit, shit.” He pulls Joker up out of the water, helps the clown stay afloat as he coughs and spits up the water, clinging to Bruce.  “Shit, J…” Bruce’s voice shakes, “I’m sorry-”

“Shh, shh…” Joker says in a hoarse voice, “It’s fine. We all have our impulses, dear.”

They work together to flip the boat over, and Bruce rows back to shore in a daze.  It isn’t until they’ve both showered and Joker is standing there in their bedroom, in only a towel, green and grey hair dripping onto the carpet, that Bruce finally loses it.

He stands up and balls his fingers into fists. “You can’t let me hurt you like that!” he shouts. “You can’t just let that happen – do you have a death wish?  That’s – that’s suicidal!”

Joker shrugs, goes to the dresser to find a t-shirt.  “I trust you.”

“You can’t,” Bruce pleads, “you shouldn’t.”

Joker cocks an eyebrow. “Batsy, darling, do you forget?” He pulls the t-shirt over himself and pops his head through, explaining, “ _I’m_ the murder clown in this relationship.”

“Yes, but…” Bruce sits again on the edge of the bed, head in his hands.  “But I’m the one who can find it in me to love you.  And if I can… if I can do that, who _knows_ where my moral boundaries are?”

Joker snorts. “You’re such a hypocrite,” he says, and giggles to himself.  “You can brush off the fact that I’m a serial murderer, just like that, but I’m supposed to hem and haw over, what, a little compulsive drowning?  Darling, I’m a _psychopath._ Meanwhile you’re tearing yourself up over a murder you didn’t even _commit._ ”

“You’re not a psychopath anymore…” Bruce whispers. “My… whatever it is. It’s. It’s growing.”

Joker squints his eyes. “I don’t buy it.” He pulls on pajama pants, shuts the drawers, and reaches for Bruce’s hand. “Come on. Let’s go watch cartoons or something.”

Bruce has a nightmare for the first time in a long time that night.  He dreams of killing Joker, and that’s not exactly a new dream, but these days the part of the dream that shakes him up is how distraught he is by the end of it.  He doesn’t _want_ to kill Joker anymore, why does his subconscious keep betraying him with images of the man’s death, as if Bruce is supposed to be _comforted_ by the image of his lover’s corpse? The cognitive dissonance is deeply upsetting.

He wakes to Joker’s hands shaking him, and a soft voice tinged with sadism whispering, “Oh, sweetheart, it’s been awhile since you had such a bad dream. Was it about me?”

Bruce tackles him to the bed and furiously hugs him, wraps all of his limbs around Joker and buries his face in the other man’s scrawny shoulder. “Shut the fuck up,” he mumbles.

“No, no, no,” Joker says, “I want all the juicy details. I bet I was dead, right, and you killed me, and then you wanted to have sex with me. Am I right? Oh, you necrophilic bastard you… How’d I die? Did you drown me? Or, no, I bet it was something more poetic, you _shot_ me with a g-” Joker’s voice cuts off with a squeak; Bruce is holding him so tight that he can’t get enough air in his lungs to finish the sentence.  Realizing this, Joker gives in, smiling fondly into the dark of the room and stroking his fingers through Bruce’s hair.

Soon, Bruce’s grip loosens ever so slightly.  He starts kissing Joker’s shoulder and throat, whispering intermittent apologies against his skin. 

Joker hushes him.  “You didn’t do anything wrong, love.”

It had started as a prank.  He’d only meant to hold him down under the water for two or three seconds, but then it turned into something darker.  Bruce can’t imagine what possessed him to do it. He _needs_ Joker, he knows he does, and it’s so… masochistic to try to sabotage his own happiness like that, let alone the moral ambiguity of actually killing Joker.

It terrified Bruce.  And it turned him on, and that terrified him even more.

 

“I have a solution,” says Joker the next morning, before Bruce has had his coffee.

“A… solution?”  Bruce sits at the breakfast bar, and picks up the envelope Joker slides to him.

“I took the liberty of designing some custom lingerie,” Joker says, with a straight face, and he opens the top of his bathrobe just enough to display a hint of purple lace that, while sexy, feels out of place before noon. Bruce is a little confused.  “I’m going to step outside while you read that,” Joker says, and he sashays his hips as he exits through the sliding door onto the porch, as if this is totally normal and not the strangest thing he’s done all week.

Bruce opens the envelope and his heart drops into his stomach.

It’s a crude crayon illustration of a cartoon Joker wearing a purple lace teddy with garter straps and an LED clock face on the front displaying 90:00 and – oh, it’s a bomb.

Oh, it’s a _bomb._ With a _HA HA HA, COME GET ME BATSY_ scrawled beneath.

Joker’s bathrobe is in a heap on the porch, and Bruce can see in the distance flocks of birds escaping the forest canopy where, presumably, Joker’s manic laugher is scaring them off.

So begins the most harrowing hour and a half of Bruce’s life.  It must be fun for Joker, but for Bruce it’s _awful._ He might be in shape, but only so much, and the burning in his lungs makes him worry worry _panic_ that he isn’t going to be fast enough.  And then he gets angry, angry that Joker is doing this, acting so flagrantly irresponsible with the most important thing in the universe, which is Joker’s life…

The little shard of darkness that had taken root inside of Bruce, the thing inside him that had been telling him to kill Joker, like an unconscious compulsion, suddenly disappears.  And, in its place, appears the familiar urge to intentionally and specifically _hurt_ Joker, with appropriate restraint.  So maybe Joker was right, though Bruce will be unwilling to admit it later, that this was what they needed.  Something familiar. High stakes. Get the blood flowing.  Remind Bruce’s subconscious that there is no need for it to _volunteer_ conflict, because the external world will provide plenty of conflict on its own.

By the time he tackles Joker to the forest floor and disables the explosive with about six minutes to spare (Joker is slowing down, too), Bruce feels alive and awake again.  He lands a hard punch to Joker’s grinning face, and as the blood starts flowing from the clown’s split lip, Bruce kisses him hard, and pins his wrists down to the dirt.

“That was,” says Joker between kisses, “ _exhilarating_.”

The whole fiasco leads to more nightmares, and late night cuddling, and really good sex. 

“I think we’ve learned something,” says Joker.  “Even when we’re old as balls, you and I still need some _playtime_ , once in a while _._ ”

 

One evening in late summer, when the weather has been particularly warm and Joker just wanted to be near the water for a little while, they sit on the porch swing together with a dark wine and watch for shooting stars over the lake.  The citronella candle burns, and Joker is absolutely drenched in insect repellant, but Bruce just tries to keep his nose near his wine glass. He’ll put up with even the most ridiculous of circumstances, if it makes Joker happy.

“Any regrets?” Joker asks. He scoots closer to Bruce, jostling the porch swing.

Bruce snorts, and then sighs, looking over at Joker thoughtfully before returning his focus to the lake and sky. “Yes,” he finally whispers back, “plenty.”

“Yeah, me too,” agrees Joker quietly. “But we figured it out eventually, right?”

“…right.” Bruce whispers.

 

_"Regrets, I've had a few_

_But then again, too few to mention_

_I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption_

_I planned each charted course, each careful step along the byway_

_And more, much more than this, I did it my way_

_Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew_

_When I bit off more than I could chew_

_But through it all, when there was doubt_

_I ate it up and spit it out_

_I faced it all and I stood tall and did it my way_

_I've loved, I've laughed and cried_

_I've had my fill, my share of losing_

_And now, as tears subside, I find it all so amusing_

_To think I did all that_

_And may I say, not in a shy way_

_Oh, no, oh, no, not me, I did it my way"_

Frank Sinatra, "My Way"


End file.
